I’ve overcooked lunch The pasta is whispering to me that it’s done, but I don’t hear. I know the pasta whispers when it’s done, I really do. But I’m not paying it any mind, the sound isn’t wiggling the cilia in my ears. Or maybe it is, and I just don’t know. Do you think […]
Rebecca M Ross – Flawless
Flawless You werethe flawless ballerinawith a Lite-Brite life,pirouetting in arabesquein an open music box,twirling til the comb plucking the nubs on the drum slowed,til the key needed to be turned,while hundreds of colorful light-up pegs aligned in childhood perfection. Sock-clad, we glissaded acrossroasted chestnut-finished parquet floors, skipping over red kitchen tiles past the basket-lined wrought […]
Natascha Graham
Bio Raised simultaneously by David Bowie and Virginia Woolf, Natascha Graham writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as writing for stage and screen. She lives with her wife in a house full of sunshine on the east coast of England. Her play, How She Kills, was performed by The Mercury Theatre in August 2020 […]
Diana Raab – A Child’s Fear
A Child’s Fear My fear of the darkbegan on a winter eveningat the age of eight, when I walked down the creaky wooden stairs of my childhood homeheaded to the kitchen for an apple. When I looked to the snow-filled yard, under the full moon,my eyes caught a clown-like figure. With onyx dots for eyes,a […]
Neil Fulwood – Fit For Purpose
Fit For Purpose Compression, he said, speaking of mechanicsand half-suspicious even then that I’d go and apply itto poetry. I wonder did he have an inklingthat I’d never quite master it, the art of compression –that I’d always get carried away by the length of a line,the sound and rhythm and flow of the words,the […]
Jeff Burt – Lackluster
Lackluster Lackluster, one of those words yoked from two disparate terms.A century ago it was used to describe eyes, their brilliance taken by the hard daily chore of living, a child’s vision leadened by poverty, a woman with more miscarriages than childrenand more children than fingers,a man who plowed as his own horse,but now most […]
Eamonn Shanahan – Maurice’s Night
Maurice’s Night Mornings are worstwhen you are most awarethe deep reaches of your unhappiness most apparent.Did ye sleep? your mother asks.Your back aches, your lungs ache, your limbs ache.The whole of your consciousness aches.The day is a desert ahead of you. Well, I can’t think what’s got into ye, says your mother.You haven’t slept for […]
Kim M. Russell – A String of Pigeons
A String of Pigeons I count them on the power line:one, two, three, four, five pigeons,plump, grey, grumbling curmudgeons,with the occasional coyish coothat helped me througha pandemic void of company,a string of them, comical and pearly.Just before sunset, a window in the tumbling cloud, accompanied by a loudclap of wings, they explodelike fireworks that have […]
D.S. Maolalai – It was me.
It was me. it was: me,walking out of a barbershop.it was: me,my hair a little too short. my handsin my pockets;this leather jacketI wore quite a lot at the time. leaves on the pavementscuttling with a light breezelike frightened crabs. a storm coming – the river, a grey creaturewith somewhat ruffled fur. it was: me, […]
Roberta “Bobby” Santlofer – Wired Spaces
Wired Spaces Conversations across telephone wiresTangling words & feelingsNothing but cat’s play—But my cat frolics over tangled strings;I don’t. Hanging on such talksTwists my insidesMy feelings aching from being laid outOn a procrastinated bed Wired spaces are such narrow connections Redialing,Through straighter wireChanges some But only retracting it allReturns me to the self I wasBefore […]